MirCorp
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| Industry | Commercial Spaceflight |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1999 |
MirCorp was a commercial space company created in 1999 by space entrepreneurs and involving the Russian space program that successfully undertook a number of firsts in the business of space exploration by using the aging Russian space station Mir as a commercial platform. Its actions were highly controversial as it created a roadblock to the planned International Space Station in creating a viable, low cost alternative.
The company achieved the following:
In terms of business development, the company was able to launch the era of space tourism by signing American businessman Dennis Tito to his launch contract. It also signed with television producer Mark Burnett (producer of the Survivor reality show) and with NBC, to produce a reality show “Destination Mir,” where the winner would travel to space. And it also was able to sign other media, entertainment and commercial space research projects. MirCorp's CEO Jeffrey Manber later stated “ we failed to survive but proved the business model, and in the long-term that will be just as important.”
The company was formed as an idea by telecommunications and space investor Walt Anderson and space advocate Rick Tumlinson. Russia lacked the funds to upgrade and save the space station, and had concluded it had no choice but to deorbit the station. Several ideas were floated, including one to hand over the Mir to the United Nations. The idea proposed by Anderson and Tumlinson was to save the Mir space station by raising it to a higher orbit to gain time and developing a “space tether” to supply power to keep the space station in orbit while further funds were raised. This plan was never implemented by the MirCorp team, as the United States government barred the export of the space tether technology until after the deorbit of the space station was announced.
The founders recruited space entrepreneur Jeffrey Manber, who had helped negotiate the first contract between the Soviet Union and NASA on space interests, and had also represented the huge Russian space company RSC Energia in its American dealings during the 1990s. Manber created the business model for the venture which involved proving that space could be a platform for media and entertainment, as well as serious space research.
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